


in starry realms

by irreputablyyours



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Astronomy, Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24147454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irreputablyyours/pseuds/irreputablyyours
Summary: Sherlock, he thinks, is the sun - amazing, impossible to get close to, impossible to live without. John is just lucky to be in his orbit.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	in starry realms

_aphelion_

When John Watson is fifteen, his cat (old, mangy, technically his mother’s but it only ever really liked John, came up to his bed and sat on his pillow on the nights where the screaming got too loud and the sounds of breaking bottles pierced his ears) falls out of a tree and dies. John is there, crying and trying to bring her back to life by petting her fur. It doesn’t work. 

His dad comes out, blinking quizzically at the sunlight before his gaze finally settles on the cat.

“That old rag finally died, huh? Better go tell your mother.” John looks at his father, and all he can feel is hatred, like downing a straight shot of vodka.

He tells his mother. She doesn’t care. He tells Harry. She lends him a small smile and then hits him on the back and tells him to get over it, there’s plenty of cats about. 

Two things come of this. One is that John pays attention in biology class, to the slight derision of his friends (they’re not offended, just a tad confused. John’s spent most of his free time up until now playing football, playing cop and robbers, playing toy soldiers). The second shows up later. 

*

_nebula_

John turns sixteen two months later. His birthday is celebrated with a gift of a new football (his mother), a Chinese finger trap (Harry), and a biology dictionary (his friends, mocking but well-meaning.) He spends the night with his friends, at a cheap restaurant where they don’t care about a couple of teenagers and their watered-down booze. 

He comes home at three in the morning, falls asleep with his head on the floor, his neck crooked to just the right angle so he can see out the window, so that the starlight hurts his eyes. He stares and he thinks, _I wonder if the cat’s up there._

It’s stupid, but he falls asleep smiling. 

He’s in the library later that day (forgot to do an English assignment, something about Romeo and Juliet and eternal love; he doesn’t really believe it, or care, but it’s better than going home). It’s boring; his gaze inevitably wanders.

He picks an old book off the shelf, the pages cracked and yellowed. He reads a chapter, then a few more, slides down onto his heels and crouches next to the shelf until his feet are aching and his fingers hurt and he’s asking the librarian “I know it’s an old book, but _please_ can I take it home I promise I’ll be careful”, giving her his best smile, the one that can even occasionally makes Harry cave. She hums and haws, until she eventually says, “Alright, just for you. But make sure you bring it back within one week.” 

One week later, John forgets to bring it back. 

* 

_reflector_

There are thirty-six constellations visible from the Northern hemisphere. John can name them all. He spends every night he can on the roof (he had to steal the key off of Mrs. Steward to get there - she's never said anything about it, but one night she saw him on the stairs and he could swear she winked). It’s for the nights where things get too much. 

There are two constellation families. Ursa Major has all the famous ones; Canes Venatici and Draco and Corona Borealis, Leo Minor, and Ursa Minor, Ursa Major.

But John’s favourite is in Perseus; Auriga, the charioteer. It’s not quite a central part of the constellation; off to the side. It isn’t particularly bright, (Capella; sixth brightest star in the sky, but it’s nothing compared to Sirius, Canopus, Vega. And they always forget the Sun.) Not particularly noteworthy. 

John is average in every way. Ask his friends. Ask his sister. Ask his parents.

But that’s alright. He doesn’t mind being Auriga, on the sidelines. So long as his chariot is going somewhere interesting. 

*

_asterism_

The stars change when he goes to Afghanistan. Most constellations are still visible - that’s relatively consistent, so long as you’re in the same hemisphere - but they’re from a different angle. It’s like one of those cards where the picture changes depending on the angle, and there are days where looking at the sky makes him feel like his balance’s been shot. 

He only takes one book with him. He only pulls it out on bad nights, the ones where he can still hear screams and gunshots, the nights where he’s forgotten why he came here in the first place. 

_...it is the function of the sun’s attracting power to constrain the earth to follow that orbit in which she performs her annual revolution._

He falls asleep wondering what it’d be like, to always know where you were going. 

Sounds kind of boring, honestly. 

*

_occultation_

He gets shot. The book’s pages get further worn in. 

Harry comes by to see him once. It starts with an argument, and almost ends that way, but before she can leave, he asks. 

“Harry.”

“Yeah?” She’s upset, he knows that, but he doesn’t have the words to console her. He doesn’t even know why she’s upset. It’s _him_ who got shot.

“Can you grab me these books? I left them at a storage locker, near Islington.” He hands her the key, writes down an address and hopes she doesn’t lose it in a booze-driven stupor. 

She looks at him for a long time before her shoulders settle and her mouth falls into a straight line. “Okay.” She grabs the list from his hand and glances it over. 

“Don’t you get sick of reading about the stars?” She raises an eyebrow.

“I think there’s a thriller or two somewhere in there,” He says, and shrugs. The answer to her question; _no, not really._

*

_parallax_

It reads:

_...hundreds of these objects, either bright or faint, with long streaks or with short...you would have described me as a sort of small stone...I have led a life of the most extraordinary activity. Pit me against your rifle bullets...I have perished instantly, and in a streak of splendor._

That last passage is highlighted. He thinks about it; going out with a bang. Somedays, when he wakes up to his (empty) flat, pours out his (bland) tea, goes to his (vapid) therapist, he’ll look at his gun (Sig Sauer, German, got in Afghanistan, kept illegally, he should probably do something about that) and that line will be the one thing keeping him from pulling the trigger. 

(He’s seen so many shooting stars in his life, he _knows_ they’re just fire and metal and dirt, but there’s something so amazing about it. Take something average, light it on fire, throw it through the gutter; look what you get.) 

*

_heliocentric_

Sherlock Holmes takes one perfunctory look at him, says ‘Afghanistan or Iraq?’ and John thinks, _huh._ His second thought it; _he comes off as a bit arrogant._ Third; _how on_ Earth _did he know that?_

He listens to Sherlock explain it all, and it hits him, the same way it did all those years ago when he was lying on the floor with an empty bottle of beer clenched in his hand, eyes catching on the stars and finally _seeing_ them;

“Amazing.” 

There’s a chase and a suicide and a bullet through a glass window, and Sherlock is looking at him with surprise, an unspoken question in his eyes; _why?_

John wonders if Sherlock knows, has any idea of that feeling you get when your whole universe falls into place. 

*

_moonbows_

“You don’t know that the Earth revolves around the _Sun?_ ”

“Why would it? Earth is where everything interesting happens. Of course the Sun would revolve around it.” 

John sighed, and tried desperately not to strangle his flatmate. 

“You,” He said, wishing he didn’t sound so bloody _fond_ (was that why everyone thought they were gay? He’d never heard anyone else sound fond of Sherlock) “Are absolutely impossible.” 

“And you are criminally unintelligent.” 

“At least I know that the Earth revolves around the _fucking_ Sun!” 

Sherlock dragged himself up off the chair, invariably looking for some crime file or other as he shifted up to grab his laptop. “I really don’t know why you care so much, John. It has no effect on our work, your job, your endless string of girlfriends, your blogging, the approximately three people whose company you consistently value, or any of the ten or so things in your life to which you ascribe value. ‘Common knowledge’ is for people who aren’t intelligent enough to understand the specifics.” 

This was Sherlock. This was just how he was. Could solve a triple locked-room murder in a fortnight, but refused to understand the importance of the Earth revolving around the Sun. He was a class of his own. 

There was no reason to get mad now. 

None. Obviously. 

“You know, for all your genius, you’re a right moron sometimes,” John said, and stopped. 

For a second, Sherlock just _looked_ at him. His lips flattened into a straight line. He blinked. 

He looked back down at his laptop, and didn’t say a word.

There was a thudding noise two hours later, the sound of boots being pulled on. John gave a small sigh of relief as he stood up, glad to be able to grab a bite to eat without having to withstand Sherlock’s glares. 

Sherlock’s laptop had been left open. John took a step closer, peered at the webpage. 

_Constellations in the Northern Hemisphere._ Basic info, nothing complicated. 

He laughs, and goes to make a cup of tea. 

*

_nautical twilight_

“Beautiful night,” Sherlock says, and John thinks, _that’s the first time I’ve heard you say that word._ He had the strangest curiosity to know how Sherlock sounds when he says words like that, the ones he never says without sarcasm; _feelings, sentiment, emotions, relationship, I, love, you._

“Remind me to show you them some time,” He says, and is absolutely stupefied when Sherlock doesn't say _no._

He doesn’t say anything, actually, but John knows him well enough to tell that that’s an answer in its own right. 

*

_celestial_

Sherlock looks near incredulous. 

"He didn't even _kill_ her with the burns, what's the point of making them?" 

He's kneeling next to the victim, a thirty-two year-old woman dressed in a blood-red blouse, who'd had a loving boyfriend of three years and an affair on the side. Both Sherlock and John's analysis pointed to the conclusion that she'd been poisoned. Sherlock said it’d been done either by the boyfriend (career man, always busy, relationships came after the job) or the lover (younger than her, poorer than her, chain smoker, obsessive).

Sherlock had rightly predicted the case to be a three, up until now. 

“The pattern; it must be some time of code. No dashes; not morse. Not a cipher…"

John leans in to get a better look at the corpse. The woman had staccato burns all the way up her forearm, clustered into small groups of irregular patterns. 

"Can't be masonic…" Sherlock shook his head. "John, get me-"

"It's not a cipher, Sherlock," John says, standing up. 

"Of course not John, it's a random arrangement of dots put there by the murderer because he finds it _pretty,_ " Sherlock says, not sparing him a glance. He’s probably rolling his eyes.

"No. It's a star map."

This time Sherlock actually does look up. "What?"

John shrugs, kneels beside him, fingers on the girl’s wrist. "See? Right there, that's Cassiopeia, and next to that is Andromeda. The vain queen and the chained princess." John grimaced. "Pretty obvious what he was going for. Two messages;" he said, holding up a finger. "The obvious and the overarching. She was his universe. He loved her, she betrayed him, and he thought she was evil for that because she broke his heart. He wanted to show she was always his, so he burned her up. All we need to do now is run forensics on the cigarettes." 

Sherlock looks at him. John thinks of what he’ll say; _horrifyingly sentimental, I don’t know how people can do it._ He should be scowling.

But he isn’t. He just stares at John for a second. He looks almost...confused. 

"You never fail to surprise me," he says, dropping his gaze back to the body and standing up. His fingers brush the back of John's neck as he does. John wonders if he knows he does that, if it's on purpose. Some type of experiment.

Sherlock takes off his gloves, shucks them on the table and strides off, yells something at Lestrade. John follows (he always does). 

He thinks; _people can't be fit into constellations like that. I'd need at least the entire sky to describe Sherlock._

Sherlock's shaking his head when John catches up. "Waste of time. Not even a three," He says, but John can tell that he's still curious. 

John has to look away so that Sherlock won’t know he’s grinning. 

*

_refraction_

The funny thing is, John _hates_ cats. Detests them with a passion. They scratch and bite and they never, ever _listen_ to anything and they make messes and are deeply unpersonable at all times. But...his mother’s cat, that’d been an exception. 

He glances at Sherlock, who’s staring idly at the ceiling, looking like he’s about to put bullets in it, and John has an idea. 

*

_perigee_

He leaves the book on the table, knowing that if it stays there long enough Sherlock will read it. It sits and gathers dust for three weeks, before John finds it mysteriously whisked away. 

He smiles. 

Sherlock mentions a new case, and John grins, quirks his lips up, and says, “Well, we’re at the apogee now. Only one way to go.” Sherlock glances at him, grins just a bit. 

“That was a horrible reference, John, and your book is stupid.” 

He should be offended, but, “-You read it.” 

Sherlock glances away. When he talks, it’s almost too quiet for John to hear. 

“Of course I did.” 

*

_perihelion_

“And that,” John says, pointing directly above them, “-is Polaris. The North Star-”

“Ursae Minoris-” Sherlock interrupts him, and John rolls his eyes, grins a bit. He doesn’t know what it is (maybe it’s the starlight, maybe it’s the blinking city lights below, maybe it’s the scratch of the shingles underneath his bare fingers, or maybe it’s just the way Sherlock’s looking at him, has been looking at him, ever since John stepped into a laboratory and Sherlock asked 'Afghanistan or Iraq?', and John said 'Amazing'-)

“Yeah. The one who guides you home.” And it’s nothing, just a look, but he touches a finger to Sherlock’s wrist and-

_kisses him, under the night sky_

and good lord-

Third time’s the charm, because his universe has fallen into place. 

**Author's Note:**

> The book John references, and for which this fic is named, is “In Starry Realms” by Robert Ball, an antiquated astronomy book first published in 1892. An online version of the book can be found [here](https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/77738#page/34/mode/1up).
> 
> Astronomy terms glossaries can be found [here](https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/explanation-terms.html#P), [here](http://www.seasky.org/astronomy/astronomy-glossary.html), and [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_astronomy).


End file.
